But small the bliss that sense alone bestows, And sensual bliss is all the nation knows. In florid beauty groves and fields appear, Man seems the only growth that dwindles here. Contrasted faults through all his manners reign ; Though poor, luxurious ; though submissive, vain; Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue; And ev'n in penance planning sins anew. All evils here contaminate the mind, That opulence departed leaves behind; For wealth was theirs, not far remov'd the date, When commerce proudly flourish'd thro' the state; At her command the palace learnt to rise, Again the long-fall’n column sought the skies; The canvass glow'd, beyond e'en Nature warm, The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form: Till, more unsteady than the southern gale, Commerce on other shores display'd her sail; While nought remain'd of all that riches gave, But towns unmann'd, and lords without a slave : And late the nation found, with fruitless skill, Its former strength was but plethoric ill.

Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supply'd By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride; From these the feeble heart and long-fall’n mind An easy compensation seem to find. Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array'd, The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade : Processions form’d for piety and love, A mistress or a saint in ev'ry grove. By sports like these are all their cares beguild, The sports of children satisfy the child : Each nobler aim, represt by long control, Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul; While low delights, succeeding fast behind, In happier meanness occupy the mind : As in those domes, where Cæsars once bore sway, Defac'd by time, and tottring in decay, There in the ruin, heedless of the dead, The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed; And, wond'ring man could want the larger pile, Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

My soul turn from them, turn we to survey Where rougher climes a nobler race display,

Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread;
No product here the barren hills afford
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword :
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter ling'ring chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, e'en here, content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.
Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts tho'small,
He sees his little lot the lot of all;
Sees no contiguous palace rear its head,
To shame the meanness of his humble shed ;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal,
To make him loath his vegetable meal ;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes ;
With patient angle trolls the finny deep,
Or drives his vent'rous ploughshare to the steep ;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
And drags the struggling savage into day.
At night returning, ev'ry labour sped, -
He sits him down the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his lov'd partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board :
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.

Thus ev'ry good his native wilds impart
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; .
And e'en those hills, that round his mansion rise,
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies :
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms ;
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.

Such are the charms to barren states assign’d; Their wants but few, their wishes all confin'd:

( And hapty too some pilgrim, thitherted, Wich many' a tuto sopays the mighilty bed.

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